Bad Hugh eBook

CHAPTER XXII

WAKING TO CONSCIOUSNESS

The sultry August glided by, and in the warm, still
days of late September Hugh awoke from the sleep which
had so long hung over him. Raising himself upon
his elbow, he glanced around the room. There were
the table, the stand, the mirror, the curtains, the
vases, and the flowers, but what—­did he
see aright, or did his eyes deceive him? and the perspiration
stood thickly about his mouth, as in the bouquet, that
morning arranged, he recognized the gay flowers of
autumn, not such as he had gathered for Alice, delicate
summer flowers, but rich and gorgeous with a later
bloom.

“I must have been sick,” he whispered,
and pressing his hand to his still throbbing head,
he tried to reveal and form into some definite shape
the events which had seemed, and which seemed to him
still, like so many phantoms of the brain.

Was it a dream—­his mother’s tears
upon his face, his mother’s voice calling him
her Hughey boy, his mother’s sobs beside him?
Was it, could it be all a dream that she, the Golden
Haired, had been with him constantly? No that
was not a dream. She did not hate him, else she
had not prayed, and words of thanksgiving were going
up to Golden Hair’s God, when a footstep in
the hall announced the approach of some one.
Alice, perhaps, and Hugh lay very still, with half-shut
eyes, until Muggins, instead of Alice, appeared.

He was asleep, she said, as, standing on tiptoe, she
scanned his face. He was asleep, and in her own
dialect Muggins talked to herself about him as he
lay there so still.

“Nice Mas’r Hugh—­pretty Mas’r
Hugh!” and Mug’s little black hand was
laid caressingly on the face she admired so much.
“I mean to ask God about him, just like I see
Miss Alice do,” she continued, and stealing
to the opposite side of the room, Muggins kneeled down,
and with her face turned toward Hugh, she said:
“If God is hearin’ me, will He please
do all dat Miss Alice ax him ‘bout curin’
Mas’r Hugh.”

This was too much for Hugh. The sight of that
ignorant negro child, kneeling by the window unmanned
him entirely, and hiding his head beneath the sheets,
he sobbed aloud. With a nervous start, Mug arose
from her knees, and stood for an instant gazing in
terror at the trembling of the bedclothes.

“I’ll bet he’s in a fit. I
mean to screech for Miss Alice,” and Muggins
was about darting away, when Hugh’s long arm
caught and held her fast. “Oh, de gracious,
Mas’r Hugh,” she cried, “you skeers
me so. Does you know me, Mas’r Hugh?”
and she took a step toward him.

“Yes, I know you, and I want to talk a little.
Where am I, Mug? What room, I mean?”

“Why, Miss Alice’s, in course. She
’sisted, and ’sisted, till ’em brung
you in here, ’case she say it cool and nice.
Oh, Miss Alice so fine.”

“In Miss Johnson’s room,” and Hugh
looked perfectly bewildered. In the room he had
taken so much pains to have in order; it could not
be; and he passed his hand up and down the comfortable
mattress, striking it once with his fist, to see if
it would sink in, and then, in a perplexed whisper,
he asked: “This is her room, you say; but,
Mug, where are the two feather beds?”